


Star Stuff

by mjules



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: M/M, Mass Effect 3 spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-17
Updated: 2012-03-19
Packaged: 2017-11-02 02:21:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/363937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjules/pseuds/mjules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Shepard/Cortez alphabet. Will include full game spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A is for Arrival

“You crashed my shuttle, Mr. Vega,” Steve drawls when James comes swaggering into the cargo bay.

“Got the job done, didn’t I, Esteban?” James counters with a wide, shameless grin, but there’s a shadow there that worries him.

“Is everyone still _alive_?” It’s a joke, meant to remind James that there’s a worse-case scenario here, but it hits an unexpected sore spot for both of them, especially when James frowns.

“Mostly.”

“Who…?” He doesn’t think it would be the commander. If James had killed their priority passenger, he can’t imagine they’d even be having this conversation.

“Major Alenko’s laid up in the med bay, but that ain’t on me. Some kind of loco Cerberus bot took him down.” James clenches his jaw; the muscle there twitches. “He’s still breathin’, but not by much. We’re headed to the Citadel.”

So Steve will have to wait a little longer to get a glimpse of their fabled commander on anything more than vids, unless he wants to crawl out of the belly of the ship and go looking for him. Which he doesn’t. He is curious about the man, though; who wouldn’t be? And the way James hasn’t shut up about him since Steve came on board for retrofitting makes him think his friend Mr. Vega has a little crush. And wouldn’t that just be cute?

But James is already starting another endless round of pull-ups, and Steve pauses to watch. Not for the show, no matter how much James likes to tease him, but because he can’t help worrying. Ever since -- well, ever since the Collectors, James has been more obsessed than usual with his body. It’s like he thinks that if he just piles on one more layer of muscle, he’ll be a brick wall no one can get through, not even the Reapers.

It won’t work, Steve wants to tell him. No matter who you are, how strong you are, you can’t always be in the right place at the right time, and that’s what matters. Instead, he just calls over, “All right, but the next time anyone goes out in the shuttle, _I’m_ driving.”


	2. B is for Batarian Cupcakes

“No, so _then_ he says --”

“So then he says, ‘If you want people to keep thinking you’re a celebrated war hero, you won’t finish that story, Vakarian.’” Shepard leans against the wall, showing his teeth in a grin that’s equally as threatening as it is playful.

Garrus coughs, but it’s a challenge. Cortez can hear it in the timbre. The turian has only been on board the ship for a day or two, but his signals are easy to read. James laughs, leaning back in a chair at the mess table, glass of something blue in his hand.

“C’mon, Loco,” he drawls. “It’s not like none of us have ever seen you drunk.”

Shepard winces, and Cortez can’t help it; he’s invested in hearing the story now. Anything that would put that look on the face of the man who cheerfully told them all about the time he’d fallen over a rail in Afterlife on Omega. Dancing, he’d said. _Trying_ to dance, Garrus had corrected. Liara had covered a laugh.

He knows he’s moving more slowly now as he prepares his supper, trying not to make too much noise so he won’t miss it if anything important gets said, but he didn’t expect the attention to suddenly switch to him.

“Hey, Esteban!”

Steve jumps, dropping an egg into the bowl and cursing as it breaks, little pieces of the shell in the yolk. When he looks up, they’re all watching him, Shepard still with that half-grin, Garrus’s mandibles twitching.

“Yes, Mr. Vega?” he answers more calmly than he feels, carefully picking the shell out of the bowl. French toast is no good crunchy.

“Tell the commander you wanna hear this story.”

He can’t help the pause, and he hopes it’s not noticeable. A quick glance shows him Shepard has his arms crossed, but his gaze doesn’t waver from Steve. He gives up on the egg shell for the moment.

“Well, I’m not one to pry, but…”

James coughs, but it sounds more like _bullshit_. Shepard smirks, and Steve takes a deep breath.

“All right, I admit. I’m curious.”

Garrus makes a clicking sound, and Shepard rolls his eyes. “Fine,” he says. “Garrus, finish the story.”

“Well, now it’s not any fun, since you gave in and all.”

Shepard grits his teeth; Steve can see the clench of his jaw. “Well, _I’m_ not telling it.”

Steve wonders if he’s imagining the way Garrus glances toward him before grinning up at Shepard. “All right, fine. So he’s on the floor, practically humping his way up Miranda’s leg, and just before she can kick him off like we’re all expecting, he goes all puppy-eyed and says, ‘Have you ever licked a drell?’”

James laughs, but it’s obviously not the punch line he was expecting, and Steve admits he’s a bit lost as to the exact humor himself.

Shepard sighs. “What you forgot to mention,” he explains, “is that our resident drell, Thane Krios, was in the kitchen making a cup of tea and got to witness the entire thing. And Mordin was right there and immediately started sharing information on the unique psychotropic side effects of drell-human interactions and the distribution of sexual orientation in the drell population and whether attraction to other species was rarer than attraction to the same sex…” He shakes his head. “It was possibly even more embarrassing than the conversation where he asked me if I had a crush on him and then proceeded to tell me he preferred statistics to sex and I might want to look elsewhere.”

Steve is startled into a real laugh this time, but James is shaking his head.

“Wait, wait. Psycho-what now?”

“Psychotropic.” Shepard grins sheepishly. “Apparently oral contact with drells produces hallucinogenic effects in humans.” He gives Garrus a hard look. “See, it’s not funny when you have to explain the joke.”

He’s finally gotten all the shell out of the egg, and he picks up the second one to crack it.

Garrus shrugs. “I can’t help it. Telling people about the time you tried batarian cupcakes and then pole-danced for Aria T’Loak has just gotten old.”

The sound of a bowl clattering off the counter and an egg going _splat_ on the floor makes them all jump, and Garrus laughs as Steve ducks to clean up his mess.

“I think there are still leftovers from dinner in the fridge,” Shepard calls over helpfully, and Steve yells back, “Thanks!” but he’s not expecting the extra pair of hands helping him clean up the spattered egg or the body leaning close to his.

“Sorry about that,” Shepard says quietly. “I hope it didn’t make you uncomfortable; Garrus just likes to take me down a peg in public.”

“No, it’s fine, I’m just clumsy--”

“I’m also not -- this is going to sound like an excuse, but I’m not usually… I mean, the cupcakes thing, I --”

Steve laughs and sits back on his haunches. “No, I -- I’ve…” He coughs. “I, uh, know what they are.” He still remembers when he and Robert were first married, and a friend had offered them little pink pills at a club.

 _“What is it?”_ Steve had yelled over the music, but Robert had picked one up and swallowed it before Marsha could even answer.

_“Batarian cupcakes! Trust me, you’ll love it!”_

He still isn’t sure what the drug has to do with batarians, but he remembers the asari matriarch bartender throwing him and Robert out of the club. At the time he hadn’t even blushed when she’d said, _“I was nice and let you finish, but now I’ve gotta clean my bar and you two might wanna get out of here before security finds you, if you know what I mean.”_

Shepard ducks his head and grins, and Steve has to take a deep breath as his memories of Robert overlap with his present moment. His chest is tight; he can’t get enough air. Shepard throws away the broken pieces of egg shell and moves to the fridge.

“I’m getting a little munchy myself, actually. I could fix something for both of us. What sounds good?”

“I’m, uh… Thanks, Commander, but I’m not really hungry. I’m just…” He tries on a smile, but it feels rusty. “Good night.”

He leaves Shepard standing in the kitchen and waves to James and Garrus as he passes them on his way to the elevator. It’s not until he’s inside and the doors close that he lets himself slump against the wall, breath ragged in his own ears.


End file.
